He Married Hoping To See His Children

But Wife Killed Him To Collect Insurance, Police Say

Raymond Douchard wanted an American passport so he could see the children he had left behind in Haiti. But his quest for it led to his murder.

Douchard, a Haitian policeman-turned-itinerant mechanic, had been dating Aline Gedeon for 2 1/2 years and hoped to marry her. But Gedeon, also a Haitian immigrant, could not give him American citizenship.

Then a roommate introduced him to Shirley McCallum Simmons, a Jamaican-born naturalized citizen, in December 1996. He began to see a chance to achieve his dream.

Douchard and Simmons married secretly on April 1, 1997, on the eve of a deportation deadline for Haitian immigrants. Three months later, Douchard turned up dead in the trunk of his car in the parking lot of a Tamarac bar.

Gedeon reacted with relief and sorrow last week when Broward County detectives arrested Simmons in his shooting death.

Police accuse Simmons, a 36- year-old former deputy with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, of killing Douchard so she could collect $1.2 million in life insurance policies she forced him to buy. She faces charges of first-degree murder and insurance fraud.

Gedeon said Douchard bought her an engagement ring. But they argued and broke up early in 1997. Friends say Douchard drank occasionally and did not like to go to church.

``He liked to hang out and have a few beers,'' said Jean-Robert St. Elus, a friend and former roommate of Douchard. ``He was fun, interesting to be with. He had a good sense of humor.''

Gedeon, a Baptist, wanted Douchard to forsake alcohol and come to services with her at the Lantana church she attended with her family. Within weeks of the breakup, Gedeon said, they became friendly again, though they no longer dated. He kept his clothes, his belongings and even his photo albums at her Lake Worth home. He ate there often and helped care for her children. Gedeon knew about Douchard's children in Haiti. He often showed her pictures of them in his albums. She knew he wanted to see them again. But he needed legal residency or citizenship in the United States so he could return to Haiti without fear of being denied re-entry.

``He wrote to his children all the time and sent them music tapes he made of his favorite songs,'' Gedeon said. ``When he left Haiti, his daughter was 1 year old, and he has not seen her since.''

But Gedeon did not know that Douchard already had taken steps to become a legal resident by marrying Simmons. He continued to keep his clothes and tools at Gedeon's house, and he fixed cars out of a shed in the back yard. She suspected nothing.

It was only when Douchard turned up dead two months later that Gedeon found out about the marriage to Simmons. It was one not even his family knew of.

``If he had asked us for advice, maybe this would have not happened,'' said Rinmercia Jean, Douchard's sister.

Ironically, Gedeon was trying for citizenship on her own so she could give Douchard what he sought.

She hoped to rekindle the engagement, but she acted too late, she said. Douchard already had married when she went to immigration offices for her citizenship interview on April 27.

Now that he is dead, she is doubly heartbroken.

``I sit there, and I think of what his last moments must have been, what he thought of, how he must have begged for mercy, how he felt to see his death in front of him,'' Gedeon said. ``I so miss him. I am not really alive.''